If Only Amadeus
by Newkirk's Heroes
Summary: ~Slash~ RL/SS, but one-sided only. Sev muses on Muggle composers and his love for a certain werewolf. Please read and review!! Thanks so much!


TITLE: If Only Amadeus…   
  
AUTHOR: Marlene   
  
EMAIL: marlenelupinblack85@y...  
  
PAIRING: Snape/Lupin   
  
RATING: PG-13, for implied slashy feelings…maybe one of these days I'll get the nerve to write something *over* PG-13!  
  
DISCLAIMER: Snape, Lupin, and all the others belong to Ms. Rowling, obviously. Mozart belongs to himself and Austria. The idea belongs to *me* (Hey! I felt really pathetic, I had to say *something* was mine!)   
  
~*~  
  
Severus Snape is convinced that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a wizard. Or at least something like that…part wizard, part veela, part angel, Severus cannot be totally sure. But, Mozart could not have been simply Muggle. After all, what Muggle could formulate, out of sheer air, the chords and tones and music that Mozart had managed to?   
  
It is a good thing that Dumbledore is the music lover that he is, Severus considers to himself, and that the Professor is not above listening to Muggle music. Most wizards distanced themselves from anything that proved Muggles were capable of beauty and advancement. Dumbledore on the other hand, reveled in the resourcefulness of Muggles, and paid loving attention to their music  
  
Severus had first discovered Mozart in Dumbledore's private music library   
  
(And yes, *discover* is the right word, Severus realizes…for it was like coming upon a new shore, a distant and foggy place, unmarred by familiar footprints and feelings. It was a place, Severus realizes, without barriers. Inside the music, there was no *right*, no *wrong*, only the perfection of unreality, the vision that everything had the capacity to be beautiful. Yes, even Severus Snape.).   
  
Now, Severus feels he cannot live without the music. Whenever he is alone (which is often), he plays it. Dumbledore knows, of course, that Severus has the recording, and because Dumbledore is the wizard that he is, he has not said anything about it. And that is fortunate, because only in the music can Severus remember and forget to breathe. Mozart's music has become a part of him, like the dark and the gloom of the dungeon, his sarcastic smirk, and…  
  
And…  
  
The other part of him. The secret part that only he knows about…that only he feels…that comes to him at night when everything is silent but for his own ragged breathing, his broken whisperings…  
  
Yes.  
  
That part.  
  
But sometimes Mozart helps with that. When Severus is too torn, when the darkening that is slowly becoming him comes with night and cold truth, Severus can turn to his Mozart: his veela, his angel. One evening, a few weeks back, Severus had slipped into the Muggle Studies classroom, and searched for a book dealing with Muggle musicians. Even though Severus would always hold with his theory that Mozart could not possibly be human, the Muggles still classified them with their other composers.  
  
At any rate, Severus had finally found a portrait of Mozart, in one of the books, a grainy, black-and-white reproduction of some eighteenth century painting, portraying a boy…no more than seventeen, according to the text…an angelic child, a genius…  
  
But Severus had seen something else in the motionless representation, almost as if it had moved. Like images, superimposed, one over the other, two portraits of loveliness, one a composer-child, the other a man…a sad-eyed man…hair flecked slightly, poignantly with strands of gray…amber-eyed…  
  
Severus had slammed the book shut and had swept back to the dungeon. It was only in the damp and gloom of his darkened normalcy that Severus had noticed he had pressed his hand to his mouth and he had been scarcely breathing. He had closed his eyes, had leaned his head against the moisture-bleeding wall, and had seen nothing but amber…a faint smell of heather…of the outdoors and the sun…  
  
~*~  
  
It is some golden Autumn Sunday. Severus is alone in his classroom, Mozart playing quietly in the background…sounding both unobtrusive and drunkenly sweet. Severus is, ostensibly, correcting his seventh-year Potions class homework, but deciphering Marcus Flint's unintelligible scrawl does not hold the slightest bit of fascination for Severus. Seeing as how Flint is a Slytherin, Severus gives him top marks and shuffles the stack of parchment away from him, resting his chin in his hand.  
  
Mozart is tugging at his mind, like some impatient child, trying to direct Severus' thoughts towards that part of him…that heather-scented, amber-eyed part…a few floors above him now…probably sitting in his classroom, just as Severus is doing…  
  
Severus closes his eyes, pulls his pale fingers through his black hair. There is so much more than music, he realizes. So much more than living. And Severus blames Mozart for the realization that there is an achingly beautiful world outside of himself and his cultured darkness.  
  
Achingly beautiful…  
  
Severus considers that phrase as the violins and horns sing sweetly in the background. His life…his life before Mozart really, his former self, had never considered beauty to be painful…only unattainable. Sitting at a desk in school, a moody teenager watching four boys laugh and talk amongst themselves, one amber-eyed boy, more subdued, quiet and soft where the other three were loud and raucous. Severus blinks hard though, dispelling any memories of school days and mooning over…  
  
Mooning…  
  
Severus barks a dry little laugh, discordant with the angelic music. Such an appropriate word! Such a damned appropriate word!  
  
Mooning.  
  
Moon.  
  
All that riding silver and ghosts and angels, haloed against the purple darkness, oh yes, that is like him. Moon. Like the moon and Severus realizes how much he probably despairs at that, because the moon, to him, must be achingly beautiful. What the moon turns him in to, makes him become…  
  
Severus sighs, and tries to empty himself of all but music and daylight moon-glow.  
  
But there is amber there, and brownish hair flecked with gray.  
  
~*~  
  
When Severus passes him in the hallways, on the staircases, when Severus sees him in the Great Hall, or the Faculty Lounge, he has to stop and wonder if his name could possibly be Amadeus. Then Severus remembers that he is supposed to be a twisted, hate-filled young man, and he tries to become so, but there is always the music and the painfully lovely look on his face, and Severus has to scowl darkly, sweep out of the room, and pretend that he has no heart. Pretend that inside, he is as empty as the new-moon sky.  
  
But then there is the music of Mozart, and the light in his hair as he moves past  
  
~*~  
  
Later that week: the weather is still golden and warm as only autumn can be sometimes, the leaves beginning to turn, painting the roadsides and giving the impression that even death can be lovely in some cases  
  
  
Severus is returning to his dungeon, skulking through the nearly subterranean hallways, thinking (with some amount of wincing pain) of his next class, which, unfortunately is a bunch of Hufflepuff first years who couldn't mix a potion if their lives depended on it.   
  
He turns to enter his classroom, humming a bar or two of Prague Symphony in D, hoping that he will have a moment or two to listen to his beloved Mozart before the Hufflepuffs enter (fumblingly, as usual, he predicts with a grimace that is in some way self-deprecating. Severus is like that…every measure of his hate is, in certain ways directed at himself)  
  
But he is caught, breathlessly off guard as he walks through the stone doorway. For the briefest of glaring seconds Severus forgets to be cruel and dark and *himself*, and he gasps, filling with a sudden light that is exactly like music and exactly like Mozart.  
  
Remus Lupin is standing by Severus' desk, gently holding the recording of Mozart. Remus seems in his own world, haloed by gold, as if he had brought some of the sun and sky down into the windowless dungeon. Severus wishes he could breath, because he is certain that the air is filled with heather and the faintly-wild scents of the forest at autumn.  
  
The moon had begun to wan last night.  
  
At Severus' sudden gasp, Remus looks up, his hurt-amber eyes meeting Severus' pool-black ones. Remus offers a tired sort of smile and his skin is pale. Severus notes that the recording is shaking slightly, in Remus' hands.  
  
"Forgive me, Severus. I wished to borrow Dumbledore's Mozart recording and he said that you had it. I know you hate having me wander around your space, but I…" Remus trails off with a tenderly helpless sort of smile. A strand of grayish-brown hair falls over one eye and Remus pushes it back softly. Absently.  
  
Severus steadies himself and walks across the room, his black cloak flapping behind him slightly. There are so many things that he has to say, has to do, has to feel…but cannot. Remus is standing there, cradling Mozart like a child…as Severus has yearned to cradle Remus since the beginning.  
  
"Fine." Severus finally manages to choke out, brimming with music and wanting. "Fine, take it Lupin. But hurry with it. I need it…" Severus stumbles. He did not mean to say 'need'. No, he is not supposed to 'need' anything. "I want it back…as soon as you can."  
  
Remus stares at Severus.   
  
As if seeing him for the first time.  
  
"I was kind of…well…shocked when Dumbledore told me…that you had it." Remus stammers. He is weak, ashen about the eyes and mouth. Severus can only shudder at how painful it is to become a werewolf. There are nights that Severus stares up at his ceiling, the moon blue-swan colored outside, and Severus wishes that he could stay with Remus when he changes. Comfort him in some way. Even if Remus tears him blindly apart…  
  
would it be much different from how he is now? Torn only on the inside, Mozart riding the currents of night, conducting the air about him.  
  
Severus returns his mind to the room-at-hand. He meets Remus' abashed stare.  
  
"I…well, I enjoy it." Severus again manages to force out over the need and the hurt.  
  
Remus smiles steadily.  
  
"That is a relief, Severus. You had me thinking that you did not enjoy anything." Remus whispers in a light and lovely way.   
  
Severus simply stares. If he were to say anything in response, he is sure that he would not be able to stop himself from telling Remus everything. The air is filled with Mozart, as if the child-genius was hiding in the corner somewhere, composing a new symphony about an achingly beautiful werewolf and a fool so in love with him.  
  
"I will return it to you as soon as I can." Remus promises, and he walks out, trailing that same scent of heather and autumn. His hair brushes past Severus, little ripples of light and music, angels and ghosts.  
  
When Remus has left with the Mozart recording, Severus is utterly alone. He cannot move, he does not want to break the spell of Remus' still-presence, the feel of him in the air, the ringing of a violin string even after the chord has gone silent.  
  
"If only," Severus mutters, a cry of misery and love and pain, as if Severus is composing his own symphony without the beauty of Mozart "If only…"  
  
And all is silence. 


End file.
